Friday, August 29, 2014

Hadoop
Operations by Eric Sammer is marvelous book which explains almost each bit of
information is very lucid manner. AS name suggests, book is for operations guys
- How data is ingested and replicated, or how MapReduce "finds" the
most suitable
node to run parts of job, or what the cost and performance advantages are of
adopting the shared-nothing, commodity hardware model recommended for Hadoop
cluster, etc.

This
book is for Operations guys/Administrators and as good supporting material to
developers.

Disclaimer: I did not get paid
to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I
have no relationship with the publisher or the author. I got electronic format
of book from publisher for review.

Friday, August 15, 2014

InfoQ is publishing a series of
articles on Self Organizing teams by Sigi Kaltenecker& Peter Hundermark. This is three part
series. First part is titled as “What Are Self-Organising Teams?”.This is one of the finest I have
ever encountered. But I have my own doubts about the details provided in the
article.

1.Article
quotes Richard Hackman & Authority Matrix published in 2001-02. Is
Authority Matrix granular enough? Consider a simple example. The third element
on the horizontal axis of Authority Matrix is “Self designing teams”. If we
closely scrutinize this element we will notice that it can be broken into two
only by varying one factor – Selection of the members for the team. This
authority may be within the team or may rest with outside authority (Think of
hiring contractors, outsourcing, offshoring, etc.). I am sure you can think of more
factors. In my view instead to limiting human/team behavior in a few boxes, it
should be represented as some type of continuum.

2.Article
talks about all the advantages of Self Organizing teams but fails to highlight
the dangers of Groupthink. Two recent examples of Groupthinks in self-organizing teams are–
Indian Judicial appointments by Collegium and Bush Administration.If there are pit falls in self-governing teams,
there should be proper checks and balances in place.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Backbone.js
Blueprints is written keeping its reader in mind. Examples in the book are
fantastic. Author has explained concepts in lucid manner and supported by
examples. This book is excellent for beginners to intermediate readers.

The
chapters are well crafted, in increasing order of complexity with digestible
examples. Though it will be good if reader has some prelim info about
Backbone.js before starting reading the book.

Nevertheless,
book is well written and easy to digest.

Disclaimer: I did not get paid
to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I
have no relationship with the publisher or the author. I got electronic format
of book from publisher for review.